Rent extraction by public sector workers may be limited by the ability of taxpayers to vote with their feet. But rent extraction may be higher in regions where high amenities mute the migration response. This paper develops a theoretical model that predicts such a link between public sector wage...

We provide updated evidence on the effects of living wage laws in U.S. cities, relative to the earlier research covering only the first six or seven years of existence of these laws. There are some challenges to updating the evidence, as the CPS data on which it relies changed geographic coding...

This paper explores the consequences of age discrimination in the work-place by analyzing self-reports of discrimination in the National Longitudinal Survey of Older Men, for the period 1966-80. Workers with positive reports were much more likely to separate from their employer and less likely...

One potential method to increase the success of female graduate students in economics is to encourage mentoring relationships between these students and female faculty members, via increased hiring of female faculty, or having female faculty serve as dissertation chairs for female students. This...

The human capital explanation of sex differences in wages is that, owing to specialization in household production, women intend to work in the labor market more intermittently than men, and therefore invest less, leading to lower wage growth. An alternative "feedback" hypothesis is that women...

We report new evidence on the existence of sex discrimination in wages and whether competitive market forces reduce or eliminate discrimination, based on plant- and firm-level data on profitability, growth and ownership changes, product market power, and workforce sex composition. Our strongest...

Research using state-level data to estimate minimum wage effects on employment follows the textbook treatment of minimum wages, assuming that minimum wages are binding and that labor markets are competitive. We present an alternative method of estimating minimum wage effects using similar data...

We test competing explanations of rising age-earnings profiles by obtaining direct estimates of marginal productivity differentials between workers in different age groups and comparing these to associated earnings differentials, using contemporary data from Israeli manufacturing firms. The...

The new NLSY offers researchers opportunities to analyze direct evidence on school-to-work programs, using data collected from individuals and schools. This paper focuses on the consequences of school-to-work programs for youth employment and schooling decisions while in high school, and...

We use new matched employer-employee data to estimate the contributions of sex segregation and wage differences by sex within occupation, industry, establishment, and occupation-establishment cells to the overall sex gap in wages. In contrast to earlier data used to study this question, our data...